Israel confirms troops fired at Hind Rajab’s car, reversing earlier account as criminal investigation opens
By SCN NEWS
JERUSALEM — Israel's military has acknowledged that its soldiers fired at the vehicle carrying Palestinian child Hind Rajab and her family in Gaza and has ordered a criminal investigation, reversing a central element of its early account of one of the war's most internationally scrutinised civilian killings.
Hind was trapped inside her family's bullet-riddled car in Gaza City in January 2024 after relatives travelling with her were killed. During hours of telephone contact with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, the young girl pleaded for rescuers to reach her.
Her body was discovered days later alongside those of her relatives. Two Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics dispatched to rescue her were also found dead in their destroyed ambulance.
For more than two years, responsibility for what happened around the vehicle remained fiercely contested.
But the latest Israeli military review has now established a fact that materially changes the official record: Israeli soldiers fired at the family's car.
The Military Advocate General has consequently ordered military police to open a criminal investigation into the incident.
That decision moves the case beyond the military's Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism, which examines unusual battlefield incidents, and into a process capable of investigating possible criminal responsibility.
The significance lies partly in how different that conclusion is from Israel's initial explanation.
In February 2024, the Israeli military said an initial investigation indicated that its troops were not present near the vehicle or within firing range when Hind and her relatives were killed.
That account was subsequently challenged by independent investigations.
Satellite imagery and visual evidence analysed after the killing indicated Israeli armoured vehicles were operating in the area. Investigators also examined the extensive bullet damage to the family's car and destruction of the ambulance sent to rescue Hind.
The new Israeli finding does not by itself resolve every disputed question.
The military has not yet publicly established which soldiers fired, why the vehicle was targeted, whether troops could identify civilians inside it, who fired on the ambulance, or whether any individual soldier committed a criminal offence.
Those questions now move into the criminal investigation.
But confirmation that Israeli soldiers fired at the vehicle removes one of the largest factual disputes surrounding the case.
The development is particularly consequential because Hind's death became one of the most recognised individual stories of Gaza's civilian suffering.
Recordings of her calls for help circulated globally, while investigations by journalists, rights organisations and international experts repeatedly questioned the Israeli military's early account.
Her case subsequently became the subject of the film “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” which won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival and later received an Academy Award nomination.
The military's decision is also not occurring in isolation.
Israel announced a separate criminal investigation into the killing of 15 Palestinian emergency and aid workers near Rafah in March 2025.
The bodies of those workers were later recovered from a mass grave along with damaged emergency vehicles.
The two cases emerged from a much broader military review.
According to Associated Press reporting, Israeli authorities examined approximately 150 incidents involving troop conduct during the Gaza war before deciding which cases warranted criminal investigation.
That makes what happened next particularly revealing.
Criminal investigations were authorised in the Hind Rajab case and the killing of the Rafah emergency workers.
But military authorities decided not to pursue criminal investigations in several other prominent cases, including the April 2024 Israeli strikes that killed seven World Central Kitchen workers.
The military also closed reviews involving attacks that killed Doctors Without Borders personnel.
The contrast places Israel's military accountability system itself under scrutiny.
Israeli officials argue that the existence of internal investigations demonstrates the country's ability to examine allegations against its own forces.
Critics, including Israeli and international rights organisations, contend that military investigations rarely produce prosecutions even when civilian deaths are well documented.
Israeli rights group Yesh Din has repeatedly questioned the effectiveness of the military justice system, arguing that only a small proportion of investigations into alleged wrongdoing ultimately result in indictments.
That debate has international legal significance.
Israel is already facing scrutiny over conduct during the Gaza war from international institutions, while organisations seeking prosecutions abroad have increasingly used universal-jurisdiction laws to pursue Israeli soldiers accused of war crimes.
Hind's name has itself become attached to that campaign.
The Belgium-based Hind Rajab Foundation has filed complaints against Israeli military personnel in multiple countries and has also sought action through the International Criminal Court.
The foundation has alleged that specific Israeli military units and commanders were responsible for Hind's killing.
Those allegations remain separate from the findings of Israel's newly opened criminal investigation and should not be treated as judicially established responsibility.
Israel maintains that its forces do not deliberately target civilians and says Hamas operated from civilian areas throughout the Gaza war, complicating military operations.
Determining criminal liability therefore requires considerably more than establishing that Israeli troops fired.
Investigators would need to examine what soldiers could see, what intelligence they possessed, what orders were issued, the perceived threat at the time and whether the use of force complied with Israeli and international law.
But the military's acknowledgment substantially changes the starting point of that inquiry.
For more than two years, much of the argument concerned whether Israeli forces were even positioned to have fired on Hind's vehicle.
The military's latest review effectively moves the central question from whether Israeli troops fired to why they fired and whether doing so was lawful.
That is the most consequential change in the case.
It also demonstrates why independent evidence gathered during wartime can remain important long after an initial military account is released.
Early reporting based on satellite imagery, vehicle damage and witness evidence challenged the claim that Israeli forces were absent from the immediate area.
Israel's own review has now reached the point of acknowledging troop fire and referring the incident for criminal investigation.
The criminal probe does not establish guilt.
Nor does it determine whether Hind and her relatives were intentionally targeted.
But it means one of the Gaza war's most disputed civilian deaths has crossed an important legal threshold: Israel's military justice system is no longer examining only what happened around Hind Rajab's car. It is investigating whether Israeli soldiers who fired at it may bear criminal responsibility.
More than two years after Hind's calls for rescue were heard around the world, the unresolved question has therefore narrowed considerably.
Israeli troops fired.
The investigation must now determine why — and whether a crime was committed.